The World Of Crackdown 2 Is 1000m Tall

Players will be able to climb high and dive deep in this summer's open-world big-city Xbox 360 exclusive Crackdown 2. The tallest building? Over 500 metres. But that's barely the half of it.

On this week's Kotaku Talk Radio podcast, four of the men at Ruffian Games who are developing Crackdown 2 told our listeners that the in-game world is 1000 metres, or 1km, tall.

The first Crackdown included a central building called the Agency Tower that was one of the tallest climbable structures included in recent video games. "You'll be climbing for a lot longer in this one, man," one of the Ruffian guys told us this week.

It wasn't clear if that kilometre includes any airspace, but Ruffian did say that the game's tallest building will be over 500 metres tall. In addition, the new game will have an expansive subterranean zone, which surely accounts for some of that 1000 metres.

UPDATE via Crackdown 2 producer James Cope: "The original Agency tower in Crackdown was just shy of 400 metres tall... The merit of tallest building [in Crackdown 2]now belongs to one called Hope Tower in Unity Heights (ex Shai-Gen) and its highest point is about 500 metres. We also go as far as 500 metres underground and you can jump or Wingsuit [glide]from the very top of the world to the very bottom which is a distance that's beyond 1km. Then there's the Helicopter in which you can go even higher so at its absolute maximum you can skydive for about 1.5km vertically."

Developers for the game had already signalled to me that there would a lot more verticality to the new Crackdown. Even the first game rewarded players for climbing high atop its skyscrapers, but with the addition of playable helicopters, an added underground and more tall buildings, this is surely a sequel whose new world is vast in an upwards direction.

To hear the conversation yourself, jump to the 33rd minute of the latest episode.

Crackdown 2's map probably isn't anywhere near as big as Just Cause 2's, so going that high above it would just show you the huge amount of empty space around it. I think it's understandable that the maximum height in a game should be proportionate to the size of the map.

I know what you mean, and I agree; but I think murdats is kind of pointing out that they can crow about the height of their game all they want. However there are games with larger areas out there, and only recently released and still fresh in our minds.

Triple AAA games nailing the brief. Indie games surprising people out of nowhere, and expansions and patches that completely turn a game around. It's been a good year for games - now it's time for you to vote for your favourite.